492 
BULLETIN OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 
mentary nebulae still attached to them, and we can apply this 
knowledge to the heavenly system, speculating if we choose upon 
the fact that the whole universe is subject to the law of evolution,, 
that just as there is a struggle upon our humble earth for the 
eventual survival of the fittest so there is such a struggle in the 
world outside and beyond us, and that similarity stands out again 
in their constructive career, and the process goes on and on, be- 
yond all human conception of time and space. 
Interesting as may be the study of methods or theories or 
suppositions as to the life of the bodies of which we have any 
knowledge and which make up the universe which we know, 
this reference to it does not cover any determination on my part 
to discuss it at any length now. Having stated this I may say 
that my simple and yet chief desire is to make a few observations 
along another line. If we refer the origin of all organized matter 
to a single substance divided into atoms, or into ions much 
more minute than atoms, and if we accept even in the most 
modified form the theory that in the protoplasm of this organ- 
ized matter is the principle of life, that from this substance, out 
of it, through it, by it, proceeds 'in some way the simple cell which 
has developed into man with his high intelligence, marvellous 
capacity for thought, and filled with hopes of an immortal exist- 
ence, in what position are we to reject the idea .that in everything 
that grows, in everything which has life, whether vegetable or 
animal, there is a consciousness of that life; sensations, feelings, 
and, of course some form of thought. Dr. Hay in an address 
which he delivered before us on the occasion of one of our sum- 
mer outings, called attention to the well known capacity of some 
members of the plant world to seize upon insects for food, and 
to the sensitiveness of other plants to the touch. In the past 
summer he interested us particularly in a branch of a tree grow- 
ing upon his grounds, which showed what might almost be as- 
sumed to be an intelligent and an ingenious and surely success- 
ful effort on the part of that branch to get out into the sunlight 
and to secure in a way a very pleasant site for its occupation. 
In another number of a journal which I have already quoted — 
the Monthly Review — W. T. Clark Nuttafll says that it is impos- 
ible to refuse to acknowledge plants as sentient beings or deny 
